What treasure lies at the end of your rainbow? (Weekly photo challenge: Treasure)

Guess what lies right at the bottom of this rainbow? Our big leaf maples! Those same maples that are dribbling sweet sap through tubes into collection vessels… The same sap that is bubbling away on the finishing stage of our first ever batch of Dark Creek Maple Syrup!!!! Treasure, indeed!

Fingers are crossed! At this point (after many hours of boiling) things can go terribly wrong in a hurry if the syrup gets scorched (which happens when the percentage of sugar increases to a point where the temperature rises fast and furious and the whole batch is doomed!!) We were all gathered around the stove watching and tasting and monitoring the thermometer… Fun times on the farm!

Was that rainbow on Friday? I was at a funeral service at RVYC, and just after it was over, there was a beautiful, strong, double rainbow over Cadboro Bay, which stayed for several minutes, both ends in the bay. And I can’t WAIT to hear how the syrup turns out. Here’s hoping you don’t scorch it.

It was indeed on Friday – I didn’t see the double rainbow, but the single was intense and complete and did seem to touch down right about where our maples are! The first batch finished late last night and we managed to get right to the end without ruining it! It tastes great! A bit different to eastern maple syrup (which makes sense) but really good. Waffles need to be on today’s menu!!